Growth and Nutritional Status of Preschool Children in India

The growth study of children is a proxy to health study because it gives valuable information on health and nutritional status of a child. This paper investigates growth and nutritional status of preschool children using data of National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4) collected during 2015–16. The sample size is 205935 children of age 0–59 months. The main objective of the study is to find sex and age-group-wise growth and nutritional status of preschool children in India. We have also investigated the impact of socioeconomic variables on children’s nutritional status. Growth study has been done through height and weight, and for nutritional assessment, three age- and sex-specific Z scores, namely weight-for-age, height-for-age, and weight-for-height, have been taken following WHO (2006). The covariates are places of residence, religion, mother’s educational status and nutritional status and wealth index of the family. The result shows that there is a positive growth at all the age groups, and maximum increment is seen from 12- to 35-month-old children. Percentage of underweight was maximum among boys in the age range of 9–23 months and among girls in the age range of 12–35 months. It is also seen that large percentages of underweight or stunted children occur from 6 months to second year of life. At present in India, 34.6% boys and 33.3% girls are underweight. Likewise, 38.4% boys and 36.7% girls are stunted. And 21.4% boys and 19.5% girls are wasted. So, boys are suffering from undernutrition a little bit more than girls. Percentages of underweight and stunting have decreased only by 10% when compared with NFHS-3 data which was collected about 10 years back. During this period, the prevalence of wasting has remained almost the same. The findings suggest that reductions in stunting and other forms of undernutrition are possible through proven interventions on mothers’ literacy status, mothers’ nutrition level, and economic status of the households. It may be recommended that exclusive breastfeeding, safe, appropriate, and high-quality complementary food with micronutrient are essential for proper growth and nutrition of preschool children.